Hyejin Kim: Jia: A Novel of North Korea

Her parents, however, cared more about their status than for their only daughter. Both sets of parents asked her to get a divorce so she wouldn’t be soiled with my father’s crimes. But my mom also was obstinate, and she refused to leave my father’s family. Several days later, a military truck took my mom, my sister, and my father’s parents and dropped them in a political offenders’ village. They were not allowed to bring any belongings. Their crime was their relation to my father.

The village was located right next to a political concentration camp. My grandparents and my mother worked for the camp, serving the guards. They hoped to run into my father, though they had no confirmation of his whereabouts. The first words they exchanged after returning from work each day were “Have you seen him?” They were not allowed to talk to prisoners; they could only check their faces as they passed.

That is the story of why I never saw my father and spent my childhood in an isolated compound. My mother believed her parents had prevented our family from actually being sent to the camp, and she hoped that someday they would help us return to our regular lives. The girl who could have anything she wanted had now lost everything.

I don’t blame my father. I understand why he remained so steadfast. How desperate he must have been when he realized he couldn’t live out his passion for study and research! What had he learned from his own father’s history? My grandmother said my father respected my grandfather with his whole heart. They had different interests, but they both believed in being true to their passions.

Life hasn’t changed so much since their time. Just as they did, I must do battle with capricious political winds in order to survive each day.

Where we lived, the temperature rose and fell with the wind. Fall was slipping into winter; leaves were falling from the trees, which themselves were becoming shorter and skinnier as the ground grew softer and taller. Piles of leaves meant that it was time to prepare for winter. The cold pinched at our flesh; sometimes the snow was as deep as I was tall. No matter how cold it got, however, I still pressed for my sister to take me outside. My grandparents were worried I might get another disease from exposure, but being stuck inside only made me sicker.

One typical day, I was nagging my sister to take me outside to play while she ate lunch. I often dictated the day’s plan to her, usually including swimming in the pond for two hours or finding five grasshoppers per person. She kept silent, and I watched her spoon move up and down. That meant “no.” I was persistent. I was such a willful girl, and my sister never rejected my begging. She was usually nice to me, but on that day I pinched her arm ceaselessly. Whenever she tried to take a bite, I tapped her right elbow and ran away. In a fit of anger, she finally threw her spoon in my direction, and it smacked me right on the forehead. I was frightened and cried out for Grandmother. My grandmother was startled by my scream, and by the time she entered the room, a big bump had already swelled up on my forehead. My sister seized with fear, grabbed niy hand, and both of us flew outside. I was happy, no matter the bump on my head; I had won.

While we walked, she pouted. “I don’t feel like going outside today. I had a bad dream: you ran away like Mom did. You didn’t turn around even though I shouted to stop you.”

Maybe she thought the dream meant something would happen to us. Maybe she intuitively felt that that day might change our lives.

As always, we went to the hills, where we liked to play, but my sister was much stricter than usual; she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. Squatting, she watched me idly as I played, rolling on the ground and stomping on leaves. Eventually I dragged her to the valley. The water was cold, but I didn’t care. I tried to take off my clothes to swim. She pulled my arms and warned me, her eyes glaring, “No. Swimming season is over. From today, we’re not going to swim until next summer.”

We sat in silence. “Didn’t you hear something from over there?” she asked, repeatedly.

I grew bored because she wouldn’t play at all; she insisted on keeping a sharp lookout. Nothing happened—her worrying seemed useless—and on the way hone I muttered to her, “You are weird today. You screwed up everything. It’s the most boring day I’ve ever had.”

Still she looked around and spoke under her breath. “No, Jia. I’m serious. I swear with my ten fingers. I heard something around us several times.”

The days were growing shorter. By the time we arrived at the house, it was already dark, but it wasn’t any different from an ordinary night. My sister didn’t seem relieved until we finished dinner and played our favorite word game, where you link the last syllable of one word to a new word. Grandmother was always on my side; otherwise, there was no way to beat my sister. She grumbled about Grandmother’s help and tried to get Grandfather on her team.

Just as we were tiring of the game, a low sound came through the door. Only my sister heard it. She swiftly glanced toward the door and gave Grandfather a scared look. “Did you hear, Grandpa?”

He turned to my sister. “What? Did you hear something? ”

A moment later, the sound reached our ears clearly. We looked toward the door all at once. Nobody stopped by our house at that time of night. In fact, we never had any visitors at all.

“Who is it?” Grandmother asked Grandfather in a low voice, a startled look in her eyes. I tried to stand up, but my sister pressed me down.

The sound came again. Grandfather turned toward the door. “Who is it?”

“Can I come in? Please…” A man’s voice, beyond the door.

We watched each other’s faces. I said to Grandfather, “Open the door. It’s cold out.”

He hesitated for a moment and then opened the door cautiously.

There was a man standing in the doorway. He wore an army uniform.

“Do you have something to eat?”

His skinny face was darkly stained, as though he washed with soot. He clasped his hands in front of his stomach, as if to show he meant no harm. If we were frightened of a stranger’s unexpected visit, he seemed even more frightened by the encounter.

“We don’t have any food that would satisfy you.”

“It’s okay. I can eat anything. I haven’t eaten for two days.”

With that, Grandfather let him in. He looked around the room restlessly before sitting down right in front of the door. My sister stepped behind her and stuck to the wall, dragging me next to her. She held my hand tightly.

Grandfather said to Grandmother, “Bring some food he can eat.” She looked at him with suspicious eyes and slid into the kitchen without a word.

“Thank you,” the man said. I remember thinking he had a funny way of speaking. I tried to get a closer look at him, but my sister warned me, giving me sharp pinches.

“I’ve become lost.” He took off his hat and pointed a finger at us. “I followed those kids all day. Otherwise, I would have wandered around the mountains for one more night.”

My sister opened her eyes wide and looked at me to let me know that she had been right about hearing noises during the day.

The man gave us a smile, and I smiled back at him. He didn’t look like a bad guy.

Grandfather told us to offer our seats. That was the warmest place in the room, where my sister and I always sit. We moved next to Grandfather, and I finally got out of my sister’s grip. Grandmother opened the kitchen door and asked Grandfather, “Do you want me to heat up the fireplace?”

The stranger shook both his hands to stop my grandmother. “No. It’s warm enough. You don’t have to… I mean it. This is already heaven to me. Sorry to give you such trouble.”